The Conseil constitutionnel has spoken again. In a decision of 27 July 2006, no. 2006-540 DC, the French constitutional court has further and significantly elaborated on earlier rulings on the status of Community directives in the French legal order. In the summer of 2004, it had ruled, in cases in which it was asked to declare unconstitutional an act of parliament implementing Community directives, that ‘the transposing of a Community directive results from a constitutional requirement with which non-compliance is only possible by reason of an express contrary provision of the Constitution’ (decisions of, inter alia, 10 June 2004, no. 2004-496 DC and 29 July 2004, no. 2004-498 DC). Very recently, the Conseil d'Etat, France's highest administrative court, took a similar stance in a case in which the constitutionality of a government decree implementing a directive was at stake (Decision of 8 February 2007, Société Arcelor Atlantique et Lorraine et autres).

Shortly before the European Council reached political agreement on the European Constitutional Treaty (18 June 2004), the Conseil constitutionnel [the French constitutional court], rendered a decision on the relationship between (secondary) community law and the French Constitution that will still be pivotal once the Constitutional Treaty has entered into force. Taken on 10 June 2004, the decision was only made public five days later. The Conseil feared that it would be presented as ‘a French abdication in the face of the European institutions’ and might influence the elections for the European Parliament of 13 June 2004.